Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts

Friday, October 24, 2014

Earth's Wandering Poles, A Comet, a Wobbling Moon

Robot explorers observed a comet as it whizzed past Mars, there's something very odd about a moon of Saturn, and Earth's magnetic field will probably flip much sooner than predicted.

About Earth's magnetic poles switching places: I'm pretty sure we'll notice the event, but it won't be 'apocalyptic.'
  1. Racing Past Mars, Heading Sunward
  2. Wonky or Awash: Mimas, Moon of Saturn
  3. Magnetic Flip: Here We Go Again

"Beware the Ides of March;" "Hail, Macbeth;" and All That


I enjoy drama with mildly-melodramatic portents and omens, like the soothsayer's "beware the ides of March;" and the "boil, boil, toil and trouble" threesome's oddly specific remark about who couldn't kill Macbeth.

More specifically, I enjoy that sort of thing in plays, movies, and stories.

News with headlines like this? Not so much.
"Earth's magnetic field 'could flip in the space of 100 years', scientists warn"
(Rob Waugh, Metro.co.uk (October 21, 2014)

"...Earth's magnetic field can flip far faster than previously thought – unleashing a force which Mayan apocalypse believers thought might destroy our planet in 2012...."
Happily, not all news about the impending magnetic field flip lead with reminders of the "Mayan apocalypse." I've written about doomsday predictions before:
There's an element of truth to that Metro.co.uk article. When Earth's magnetic poles trade places, we'll probably notice some of the effects: but I don't fear for humanity's survival.

Geomagnetic Reversal: Been There, Done That



(From NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
("NASA computer simulation using the model of Glatzmaier and Roberts. The tubes represent magnetic field lines, blue when the field points towards the center and yellow when away. The rotation axis of the Earth is centered and vertical. The dense clusters of lines are within the Earth's core."
(Wikipedia))

Earth's magnetic field is weakening a whole lot faster than scientists expected. Our planet's north and south magnetic poles will switch places "soon:" on the geologic time scale.

More-or-less-breathless journalism notwithstanding, magnetic poles switching places isn't anything new. Geomagnetic reversal generally happens every 100,000 to 1,000,000 years. ("Geomagnetic Reversals: Rates, Timescales, Preferred Paths, Statistical Models and Simulations," Catherine Constable, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (September 30, 2001))

Sometimes the magnetic poles stay put for much longer, sometimes they're downright twitchy. The Laschamp event, 41,400 years back — give or take a couple thousand years — lasted centuries, not millennia.

That time, the temporarily-reversed field was was 75% weaker than today's norm: and the strength dropped to only 5% of the today's value during transition. We know there was more radiation reaching Earth's surface then, since scientists found beryllium 10 in a Greenland glacier.

But humans didn't have newspapers and the evening news then: and I'm getting ahead of myself.

Evidence and a Cosmic Coffee Cup




I explained why I think Earth is more than 6,018 years old two weeks ago, and why I'm sure Earth isn't flat the week before that. (October 10, 2014; October 3, 2014)

As a Catholic, I have to take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. It's in the rules. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101-133)

But I'm not obliged to assume that the Bible is a science textbook: or written from the viewpoint of a metaphor-challenged contemporary American.

Since I'm a Catholic, I must believe that God created, and is creating, a good and ordered physical world: a universe that's changing, in a state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 282-308)

I must also believe that God is infinite and eternal, almighty and ineffable: beyond our power to describe or understand. (Catechism, 202, 230)

If God had wanted to create a universe where Earth was a doughnut suspended over a cosmic coffee cup: that's the way it would be. But evidence very strongly suggests that this is not the case.

Moving on.

1. Racing Past Mars, Heading Sunward



(From Damian Peach, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("Astrophotographer Damian Peach captures Siding Spring (green smudge at lower-centre) on approach to Mars (saturated star-like object)"
(BBC News))
"Comet Siding Spring skims past Mars"
BBC News (October 19, 2014)

"A recently discovered comet has whizzed past Mars, giving scientists a unique chance to study an object from the farthest reaches of the Solar System....

"The comet, known as Siding Spring, raced past Mars at 56km per second (125,000mph), missing it by 139,500 km.

"Rovers on the Martian surface and satellites were primed to catch the event on their cameras and instruments.

"Siding Spring comes from the Oort Cloud - a spherical region of space far beyond the planets....

"...'Siding Spring probably got knocked into the inner Solar System by the passage of a star near the Oort Cloud,' said Carey Lisse, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, US.

" 'So think about a comet that started to travel probably at the dawn of man and it's just now coming in.

" 'And the reason we can actually observe it is because we've built satellites and rovers and we've now got these outposts at Mars. That's pretty exciting.'..."
I read stories about "outposts at Mars" in my youth. Back then, most science fiction writers assumed that the outposts would house human beings: perhaps with a robot servant to add a bit of excitement.

That was then, this is now. Humans have walked on Earth's moon, but the vast bulk of exploration has been done by robots: including those Martian outposts.

Enough reminiscing.

The second image, from Nick Howes and others, shows Comet Siding Spring below and to the right of Mars. The comet's official name is C/2013 A1.

"C/2013 A1" is a tad awkward to remember, though, so astronomers call it Siding Spring. That's because Robert McNaught, who spotted it in January 2013, was at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia.

Siding Spring's nucleus is small: roughly a kilometer, 3,300 feet, across. Those pictures show gas boiling off the nucleus as sunlight heats it, and dust that was embedded in the frozen gas.

Two astronomers, Estonian Ernst Öpik (1932) and Dutch Jan Oort (1950), said that long-period comets probably came from an orbiting cloud far beyond the known planets.

Since then, astronomers have worked out what shape the "Oort cloud" is, based on orbits of comets that take more that 200 years to circle our Sun.

It's still unexplored territory, though. Our knowledge of it comes from studying comets, after they drop into our part of the Solar System.

The Oort could seems to be debris left over from the Solar System's formation some 4,568,000,000 years back. Comets like Siding Spring are opportunities to learn more about that era: and our only chance to get samples, until we send probes into the Solar System's borderlands.

A Robot's Report from Mars

"Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status Report"
JPL/NASA press release (October 19, 2014)

"NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has sent home more data about Mars than all other missions combined, is also now providing data about a comet that buzzed The Red Planet today (Oct. 19)....

"...Following the critical period of dust flux, the orbiter is communicating at 1.5 megabits per second with NASA's Deep Space Network. It remained on Side A of its two redundant computers, and all subsystems are working as expected.

"Downlink of data has begun from today's comet observations by three instruments on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The full downlink may take days....

"...Objectives of the observing program are to attempt to image the comet nucleus, to study its surrounding coma of dust and gas, and to search for signatures of that material interacting with the Mars atmosphere. Observations of the comet will continue for another day or so, as the comet and Mars separate, with the comet reaching its closest approach to the sun in about a week, on Oct. 25...."
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and other satellites were getting data about the Martian atmosphere, too. Scientists expect measurable heating, and maybe changes in Martian winds.

That's "measurable," not "catastrophic."

Folks have been edgy about comets long before we learned that they're not a weird sort of weather.

That illustration shows the impending destruction of Earth by a comet on June 13, 1857. The comet didn't show up.

Hally's Comet did swing by Earth in 1910, though. Our planet passed through the comet's tail: with the usual results:
"...The 1910 pass of Earth was especially close and, thanks to expansive newspaper coverage, eagerly anticipated by the general public. In fact, Earth's orbit carried it through the end of the comet's 24-million-mile-long tail for six hours on May 19, earning the story the day's banner headline in The New York Times.

"While most reporters of the day turned to astronomers to get the facts straight, the yellow press chose to pursue the story in more fanciful ways, helping to fuel the fears of the impressionable that the end of the world was nigh. Despite some published reports leading up to the event, the comet's tail did not contain poisonous gases, and there was never any danger of a celestial collision, either...."
("May 19, 1910: Halley's Comet Brushes Earth With Its Tail," By Tony Long, Wired (May 19, 2009))
Today's "yellow press" is the sort of "FBI CAPTURES BAT CHILD!" thing you'll see in supermarket checkouts: and it's as fanciful as ever. My opinion.

The old "shocking secrets revealed" schtick is still going strong, and so is an — imaginative? — approach to science.

Getting back to Comet Siding Spring, the NASA/JPL press release says that one of their goals is learning more about the Solar System's early days.

Eventually, I'm pretty sure we'll have probes exploring the Oort cloud, getting samples before they fall toward the sun. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to seeing what scientists learn from Comet Siding Spring: after the download's done.

The next upgrade in long-distance service between Earth and Mars may include significantly faster service, and that's another topic. (August 1, 2014)

2. Wonky or Awash: Mimas, Moon of Saturn



(From , NASA/JPL, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
("The enormous Herschel Crater makes Mimas look rather like the Death Star space station from Star Wars"
(BBC News))
"Death Star moon may be 'wonky or watery' "
Jonathan Webb, BBC News (October 16, 2014)

"The internal structure of one of Saturn's moons is either wonky or awash with water, according to a new study.

"Mimas is nicknamed the Death Star because it resembles the infamous Star Wars space station.

"It has a tell-tale wobble that is twice as big as expected for a moon with a regular, solid structure.

"The researchers offer two explanations: either it has a vast ocean beneath its surface, or a rocky core with a weird shape resembling a rugby ball...."
I'm an American, and none too obsessed with sports, so I needed to look up "rugby ball," to see what one was shaped like.

If Jonathan Webb had simply written "prolate spheroid," I'd have known exactly what he meant.

I think he made the right choice, though. Most folks reading his article probably know what a rugby ball looks like.

Moons of the Outer Planets


Until the last decades of the 20th century, we didn't know much about moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and the other outer planets.

Astronomers could tell how far from their planet the moons were, had a pretty good idea of how big they were, and could make educated guesses about what they were made of: but that was about it.

Scientists were limited to facts, and what they could extrapolate from those facts. Writers and artists could stay 'in the box,' or let their imaginations off the leash: which they frequently did.

Then we started sending robot spaceships to the outer Solar System.

Some moons looked a bit like ours, crater-covered desolate spheres. Others are — different.

Hidden Oceans


We'd known that Saturn's moon Titan had an atmosphere since 1903. The Cassini-Huygens mission gave us maps of Titan's surface. Its lander sent back pictures of pale hills and dark streams.

But Titan is so cold that water is a mineral. Flowing hydrocarbons fill the moon's lakes and rivers.

Saturn's moon Enceladus, and Jupiter's Europa and Ganymede are another matter.

Scientists found strong evidence of liquid water on these moons. More accurately, in the moons.

Europa's subterranean (subeuropan??) ocean may have more than twice as much liquid water as Earth's ocean.

Liquid water doesn't necessarily mean life: but it's getting increasingly difficult to rule out that possibility.

I've wondered if the apparently-complex chemistry and layering of Ganymede's ocean might be near the top of possible homes for life on another world.

If we find life that started on another world, I'm pretty sure that it won't be quite like anything we've imagined. And that's yet another topic. (July 18, 2014; May 9, 2014)

Mimas Moves


"Libration" is what astronomers call the sort of wobbling Mimas does. It's a sort of rocking motion. This animation, given to Wikimedia Commons by Tomruen, shows Earth's moon librating during one orbit.

Mimas moves more than our moon. A point on its surface moves back and forth by as much as six kilometers: a sizable fraction of the moon's 396 kilometer diameter.

By measuring Mimas's motions, scientists can learn what sort of material is under its surface:
"...'Nature is essentially allowing us to do the same thing that a child does when she shakes a wrapped gift in hopes of figuring out what's hidden inside,' Dr Tajeddine said.

His team settled on two likely plot twists, wrapped beneath Mimas's icy crust.

Firstly, their calculations suggested that the wobbles could arise from a core that was squashed or elongated by 20-60km: a huge, central rugby ball of rock.

Alternatively, the moon could have a normal spherical core and crust, but separated by a 'global ocean'. That way, Dr Tajeddine explained, 'the shell can wobble more easily, because it's not attached to another mass'...."
(Jonathan Webb, BBC News)
Cornell's Dr. Radwan Tajeddine thinks a subterranean (submimantean ??) sea is the most likely explanation for Mimas's wobble.

Now that there are at least two plausible explanations for its unusual wobble, scientists will be collecting data to see which one the evidence favors.

Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott pointed out what discovering another massive buried ocean could mean:
"...'If the ocean is really there, we're getting to the point where it's just completely standard for icy moons to have substantial bodies of water inside - and that could have interesting implications for how many of these things could support life.' "
(Jonathan Webb, BBC News (October 16, 2014))
We may eventually learn that Earth is a strange world: with its ocean on the outside.

3. Magnetic Flip: Here We Go Again



(From UC Berkeley, used w/o permission.)
("...This map shows how, starting about 789,000 years ago, the north pole wandered around Antarctica for several thousand years before flipping 786,000 years ago to the orientation we know today, with the pole somewhere in the Arctic."
(UC Berkeley))
"Earth's magnetic field could flip within a human lifetime"
Robert Sanders, Media Relations, UC Berkeley News Center (October 14, 2014)

"Imagine the world waking up one morning to discover that all compasses pointed south instead of north.

"It's not as bizarre as it sounds. Earth's magnetic field has flipped – though not overnight – many times throughout the planet's history. Its dipole magnetic field, like that of a bar magnet, remains about the same intensity for thousands to millions of years, but for incompletely known reasons it occasionally weakens and, presumably over a few thousand years, reverses direction.

"Now, a new study by a team of scientists from Italy, France, Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrates that the last magnetic reversal 786,000 years ago actually happened very quickly, in less than 100 years – roughly a human lifetime...."
Very few of us live more than a hundred years, so it's easy to think of things like mountains and constellations as permanent fixtures.

At the moment, for example, Earth's north pole – rotational pole, not the magnetic one – points at the star Polaris, more or less. We started calling that star "Polaris" about half a millennia back, and as far as one of us is concerned, it's "constant as the northern star." ("Julius Caesar;" Act III, Scene 1; Shakespeare)

But that's changing. About two millennia back, natural philosophers noticed that the autumnal equinox was moving across the sky. There's still debate over whether Aristarchus of Samos or Hipparchus uncovered that phenomenon first, or someone else, and that's yet again another topic.

Since then, we've learned that Earth's north pole moves like a wobbling top. Astronomers call that movement axial precession. It takes Earth's axis about 26,000 years to precess all the way around.

Polaris was the north star in Shakespeare's day. "Constant as the northern star" still makes sense, since only about four centuries have elapsed since Shakespeare's day.

Back when Julius Caesar lived, there wasn't a bright 'pole star.' Earth's north pole pointed at a spot between Polaris and Thuban. On top of that, Polaris is a variable star: the closest Cepheid variable:
Polaris being our north star at the moment is interesting, to me at least, but doesn't have much to do with Earth's "north" magnetic pole.

"Mutation," "Cancer," and Media Relations


Scientists knew that Earth's magnetic field has flipped many times: but generally assumed that the turnover was a comparatively gradual process. Now there's evidence that the last flip happened "fast," over the course of a century.

That's the "science" in the article. Now, a few words about emotions and marketing.

Mr. Sanders uses emotionally-charged words like "mutation" and "cancer." I don't blame him. UC Berkeley Media Relations pays him, so he's obligated to make this bit of science news as juicy as possible.

My guess is that one of UC Berkeley Media Relations priorities is getting UC Berkeley's name into as many news services as possible.

Since readers of England's Daily Star and Daily Mirror, and America's The Globe and The National Enquirer, probably get more excited about "mutation" and "cancer" than the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, Mr. Sanders' rhetoric makes sense. From a marketing point of view.

To his credit, he also pointed out that Earth's magnetic field flips are routine; and don't seem to have had much effect on terrestrial life:

J. Jonah Jameson and the Geologic Time Scale

"...The discovery comes as new evidence indicates that the intensity of Earth's magnetic field is decreasing 10 times faster than normal, leading some geophysicists to predict a reversal within a few thousand years.

"Though a magnetic reversal is a major planet-wide event driven by convection in Earth's iron core, there are no documented catastrophes associated with past reversals, despite much searching in the geologic and biologic record. Today, however, such a reversal could potentially wreak havoc with our electrical grid, generating currents that might take it down...."
(Robert Sanders, Media Relations, UC Berkeley News Center)
I agree: Earth's next magnetic field reversal could "potentially wreak havoc," with emphasis on "potentially." That's assuming that we do nothing while it's happening: aside from sitting around, worrying.

News media has picked up the "within a human lifetime" angle and run with it. But since I don't work for a real-world equivalent of J. Jonah Jameson, I can point out that Earth's next magnetic field reversal is just around the corner: on the geologic time scale.

On the human time scale "a reversal within a few thousand years" isn't exactly immediate.

Putting "A Few Thousand Years" in Perspective


Let's imagine a hypothetical situation, where natural philosophers realized that Earth's magnetic field would turn around in a few thousand years — during the reign of Enlil-nadin-ahi, last Kassite king of Babylon. That was about 3,170 years ago: so I could say it's "a few thousand years" back.

Shortly after becoming king, Enlil-nadin-ahi lost a war: which finished the Kassite dynasty.

Over the next century or so, civilization as Enlil-nadin-ahi knew it ended. We don't know exactly what happened. Some events of the crisis may have been woven into tales of the Trojan War: generations after the collapse.

Time passed. Greek philosophers discussed life, the universe, and everything. Romans built roads. Then Western civilization hit another rough patch, roughly 15 centuries back.

About 800 years ago, we started building cathedrals, weren't wiped out by the Black Death, and that brings me up to the present.

Remember those hypothetical natural philosophers and the Kassite king? It's now been "a few thousand years" since they lived.

If we'd had that sort of heads-up on Earth's impending magnetic field reversal — I think we'd have had time and opportunity to cobble together a few contingency plans. I think we'd be ready, even with a mere 2,000 years lead time.

Flip-Flop Fields and Seafloor Stripes


It's been about a hundred years since geologists noticed that some volcanic rocks were magnetized 'in reverse,' as if Earth's north magnetic pole had been where the southern one is now.

Scientists started making detailed maps of Earth's magnetic field in the 1950s and 1960s. That's when they discovered very regular magnetic strips on ocean floors.

Occam's razor suggested a simple explanation for those magnetic zebra stripes: seafloor spreading. Actually, it was two other chaps, Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews, who pointed out the seafloor spreading connection..

William of Ockham was a Franciscan friar who lived in England, about seven centuries back. One his major contributions was the principle of parsimony that's named after him, and that's still another topic.

Seafloor stripes, coupled with radiometric dating, give scientists information about Earth's magnetic field over the last 200,000,000 years: give or take ten million or so.

Any seafloor older than that has been resorbed back into Earth's interior, and I've talked about plate tectonics before. (October 10, 2014; September 19, 2014)

Field reversals get recorded in "frozen" ferrimagnetic minerals on land, too. Scientists have tracked Earth's magnetic field reversals at least as far back as the Kiaman reversal: 262,000,000 to 318,000,000 years ago.

Scientists thought that mass extinctions might be caused by these magnetic flips.

Someone worked out a worst-case scenario where Earth's magnetic field disappeared entirely, and stayed that way. If that happened, the idea was that Earth's atmosphere would get blown away by the solar wind and Earth would end up looking like Mars.

Magnetic flip-flops have been happening for at least a third of a billion years, and we're still here. Scientists found statistically significant increases of beryllium-10 deep in Greenland's ice sheet: but so far, it looks like Earth's biosphere stays in good working order, no matter where the magnetic poles are.

That's reality. And now, the news.

"...On the Brink..." — Scary Headline, Quiet Disclaimer



(From Getty images, via Express; used w/o permission.)
("The Earth's magnetic field could flip, warn scientists"
(Express))
"North and South flip: Earth's magnetic field may be on brink of switching, warn scientists"
Levi Winchester, Express (October 11, 2014)

"EARTH could be on the brink of a magnetic flip - causing what we know as north and south to turn upside down and switch, according to scientists.

"Our planet's magnetic poles have flipped before - with the last time being 780,000 years ago, say geophysicists.

"But now it looks as though our magnetic field is set to switch again and according to new research, it could happen sooner than first thought.

"Scientists have warned this could affect power grids and communication devices across the world. Experts are even said to have alerted governments to a possible world blackout as a result.

"The earth's magnetic field is weakening ten times faster then previously believed - decreasing in strength by about five per cent a decade rather than five per cent a century.

"This weakening field indicates an impending flip in poles, with scientists estimating that this process could begin in less than 2,000 years...."
This article's headline and lead paragraphs have plenty of emotionally-laden phrases to get the reader's attention: "on brink," "warn," and "alerted governments to a possible world blackout."

That's why I make a habit of reading past the lead material and thinking, if I see something interesting in the news.

Credit where credit is due: Mr. Winchester does say that the next flip could begin "in less than 2,000 years."

Even better: his article quotes a scientist, giving Gary [A.] Glatzmaier's name, and where the quote comes from:
And, well 'below the fold,' there's this disclaimer:
"...Mr Glatzmaier himself acknowledges that there have been several false starts throughout history - adding that the field would need to weaken at its current rate for around 2,000 years before the process begins...."
(Levi Winchester, Express)
Like I said before, with that much time to prepare: I think we can deal with the situation when it comes.

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Sunday, November 3, 2013

Death at Los Angeles International Airport, Prayer, and Getting a Grip

Death at Los Angeles International Airport Friday morning is still in the news. It's not surprising that Transportation Security Agency officer Gerardo Hernandez is still dead; or that Paul Ciancia was charged with murder.



(From KTLA5, via Los Angeles Times, used w/o permission.)
"A Transportation Security Administration agent was killed and several other people were wounded when a gunman opened fire in a Los Angeles International Airport terminal Friday morning."

Ready for Heaven: Or Not

Being Catholic, I think there's a point in praying; and praying for folks who have died. Prayers for the dead isn't 'normal' in American culture. I've heard that quite a few Catholics have 'gone native,' and abandoned the practice.

Most of us aren't ready for Heaven when we die. That's not a criticism of "those people over there." I'm aware of how imperfect I am: and only have a few decades, at most, to get ready. Happily, there's a sort of spiritual ICU for folks who aren't perfect when we die. (Catechism, 1030-1032)

That's not an excuse to misbehave. My understanding is that it's a lot easier to sort out my soul while I still have a body: and I need all the leverage I can get, and that's another topic.

I believe that some folks get fast-tracked after death. We've tracked, verified, and canonized quite a few of them: the Saints. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 828)

Not all Saints are martyrs, by the way. Tomorrow we'll be celebrating the death of Saint Charles Borromeo. The folks who shot a cross he was holding may have been aiming at him: or not. Firearms weren't particularly accurate in 1531, and that's yet another topic. Charles Borromeo survived an assassination attempt, not the 1531 incident, and finally died of an infection. Still more topics.

Anyway, for Gerardo Hernandez:

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Guns, Schools, and the Yellow Peril

I'm glad that the man who apparently killed Gerardo Hernandez is still alive, for quite a few reasons. I'll get back to that in another post. Then again, maybe I won't.

Details about Paul Ciancia, the accused killer, started coming out Friday. Quite a few news sources said that he went to an all-boys Roman Catholic school in Wilmington called Salesianum School.

One of the articles I found put that fact in the first paragraph. Others placed it in the eighth, ninth, or 10th paragraph.1

This is definitely not the sort of "former altar boy" news reporting which until recently seemed to assume that serving as an altar boy was the first step toward a life of crime.

It may take generations before many of America's self-defined best and brightest learn that many Catholics are not drunken Irishmen, Italian criminals, or uneducated slobs.

I'm hopeful, though, since America's national government finally made restitution to families who had been rounded up because of their ancestry. I think I understand why President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942: but I also think it was a very bad idea.

Even better, it's been generations since national and state policy has openly addressed fears of "yellow peril." Granted, we've got new problems: or new variations on ages-old problems, and that's - what else? - more topics.

Living in a Big World

I'm not going to rant about the presumed evils of all-boys schools, Catholic education, or trusting people whose last names don't sound British. That would be silly: and wrong.

We live in a big world. Oddly enough, that leaves less room for folks who want everyone to be the 'right sort.' I've harangued about this off an on over the years:

Getting a Grip About Altar Boys

Crazy ideas can be fashionable. Eventually, enough folks notice that the crazy idea they learned in school, or read in the papers, or heard on a talk show, doesn't match reality. Sometimes the process is fast, even by American standards. Sometimes it drags on for generations.

In the case of "former altar boy" news stories, it helped that some diligent chap stepped back and glanced at the big picture. This paragon noticed that nearly all young men in some neighborhoods had been altar boys at some point. The usual fractions became criminals, got into Congress, or lived productive lives. Even more topics.

Still more related posts:
1 Excerpts from the news:
"Sources: Alleged shooter hated government, 'New World Order' "
Doug Gross, CNN (November 2, 2013)

"Paul Anthony Ciancia was a newcomer to Los Angeles -- a 23-year-old Catholic school graduate and son of a popular Fraternal Order of Police member back in New Jersey...."
(1st paragraph)
"New Jersey police: Dad called, worried about Los Angeles airport suspect "
Kathy Matheson and Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press, via The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee (November 2, 2013)

"The young man suspected of carrying out a shooting at Los Angeles International Airport had sent a sibling a text message mentioning suicide, leading their father to seek authorities' help in finding him, a New Jersey police chief said Friday....

"...Ciancia graduated in 2008 from Salesianum School, an all-boys Roman Catholic school in Wilmington, Del., across the Delaware River from Pennsville, the school said...."
(9th paragraph)
"Suspect in LAX shooting apparently had suicidal thoughts before attack"
FoxNews.com (November 2, 2013)

"The man suspected of killing a Transportation Security Administration employee and injuring at least six people in Friday’s shooting at Los Angeles International Airport apparently had suicidal thoughts before the attack, authorities said....

"...The suspect graduated in 2008 from Salesianum School, an all-boys Roman Catholic school in Wilmington, the school said...."
(10th paragraph)
"Paul Ciancia, of Pennsville, held in Los Angeles Airport shooting, comes from 'good family,' police chief says: UPDATE"
South Jersey Times, via nj.com (November 1, 2013)

Suspect Paul Anthony Ciancia, from a screenshot of CBS News' Twitter feed; via South Jersey Times, nj.com"A longtime resident of this Salem County township led his father to believe he would take his own life before opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle and killing a Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, police said...."

"...Ciancia, a longtime township resident, did not attend Pennsville schools, Pennsville School District Superintendent Dr. Michael Brodik said. A 2008 graduation list for Salesianum High School, a Catholic school in Wilmington, Del., includes a Paul Ciancia...."
(8th paragraph)
"LAX shooting: Gunman targeted TSA officers, wrote anti-government note"
Dan Weikel, Scott Gold, Richard Winton, Brian Bennett, Joel Rubin, Joseph Serna, Ari Bloomkatz, Samantha Schaefer, Kate Mather, Matt Stevens, Jill Cowan, Alicia Banks and Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times (November 1, 2013)

"A composed, solitary gunman shot his way into Los Angeles International Airport on Friday morning, killing a transit security screener and injuring at least one more before being wounded by police and taken into custody. The incident was over in less than 10 minutes, but caused chaos at the world’s sixth-busiest airport and disrupted thousands of flights across the nation.

"...A classmate of Ciancia’s said Friday that the suspected gunman was a loner and had been bullied at his private high school...."
(8th paragraph)
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Friday, July 12, 2013

Home Runs, Feed Bags, and 'Religion' News

Sometimes reporters who cover science or religion stories get the facts straight. I had the pleasure of writing about an example in this morning's post.

On the other hand, some articles give the impression that their authors thought these movies were documentaries:
I could wring my hands is anguish, declare that civilization is doomed, or bitterly denounce ill-informed journalism. That might feel good for a few minutes: but I don't think it's a good idea.

Instead, I wrote this post.

Science

I've written about bungled science in media, mostly in another blog:
Maybe clueless editors and reporters don't take science seriously; maybe they don't care about facts as long as folks read their paper, or watch the evening news: I don't know.

Religion

Almost two thirds of Americans say religion is an important part of our lives. (Gallup (August 31, 2010))

That makes the disconnect between faith and facts in the news remarkable.
Stable Supplies for Horse People, used w/o permission"...If establishment news covered the Super Bowl the way they cover religious news, we'd see expert discussions of the quality of this year's home runs compared to number of women employed by the NFL, and speculation about why the jockeys weren't wearing feed bags....."
(June 15, 2012)
"...I also think that 'news' editors could learn from the sports editor - and start insisting that their religion reporters know a little about religion. Or at least know how - and when - to use Google...."
(December 23, 2011)
Reporters covering the latest 'scientific' or religious doomsday prediction are just doing their job.

Those who assume all Christians believe America's perennial 'end times' forecast and hate science: not so much. (January 8, 2012; May 20, 2011)

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Science, Sainthood, and High-Temperature Superconductivity

I had the pleasure of reading about the science angle of Sainthood this week: written by someone who checked the facts.

We may also be discovering a new dimension in quantum physics.
  1. Science and Miracles
  2. Quantum Physics: Waves, Particles, and Maybe More

Saints?

Depending on who's talking, saints might be:
  1. "King's kids"
  2. An American football team
  3. People who've been dead for centuries
  4. Disciples of remarkable fidelity
I'm Catholic, so "A" doesn't apply. I've written about the prosperity gospel and other bad ideas before. (May 17, 2013)

Spelled with a capital "S," answers B or D are correct: and so is C, sort of. This isn't a 'sports' blog, though, so I'll concentrate on saints (lower case "s") and Saints (capital "S"), Catholic style.

I am, God help me, a saint with a lower case "s." I'm a Christian. I follow Jesus, and am part of my Lord's Church, so I'm a saint. (February 14, 2010)

I don't feel particularly saintly, but I don't need to: and that's another topic. (November 24, 2009)

With a capital "S," a Saint is someone who has lived a holy life, shown heroic virtue, and is currently dead. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 828)

Quite a few Saints lived in the centuries before steam power replaced horses, but we're still finding new ones. 20th century saints include Padre Pio and Maximilian Kolbe. I haven't heard of a 21st century Saint, but we're only an eighth of the way through this century.
"SAINT: The 'holy one' who leads a life in union with God through the grace of Christ and receives the reward of eternal life. The Church is called the communion of saints, of the holy ones (823, 946; cf. 828). See Canonization."
(Catechism, Glossary)

Tools and Documentation

The Catholic Church didn't use science to identify our early saints because it hadn't been invented yet.

Scientific method as we know it is fairly new, although its roots are deep. Folks like Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Copernicus had been developing ways to analyze knowledge for about two millennia when Francis Bacon and others jump-started scientific method about five centuries back.

As the Church gets new tools for sorting through facts, old records get reviewed. For example, about 50 years ago, when folks at headquarters discovered that St. Christopher had never been canonized.

Personal devotion to Christopher is still okay, but his feast day isn't on the calendar now. (April 5, 2011)

We'll probably see more adjustments like that, as the Church's archives get converted to machine-readable formats. I have no problem with that, since human beings will still make the decisions. What will change are the tools we use while analyzing facts.

Faith, Science, and Raising Kids

My wife and I home schooled our kids for grades seven through 12: their choice.

Part of our job as parents is teaching them that God and ethics matter. We're also expected to help our children learn the skills and knowledge they'll need as adults. (Catechism, 2221-2226, 2228-2230)

I thought they should get an overview of the size and workings of the universe. Even if they didn't become scientists, knowing basic science will help them be better citizens.

Love and Learning

The Catholic Church says:
Learning about this vast and ancient creation is optional, but valuable. (Catechism, 159, 282-289, 2293)

1. Science and Miracles

"The Science of Miracles: How the Vatican Decides If They're Real"
By Tia Ghose, LiveScience (July 9, 2013)

"When Pope John Paul II died eight years ago, supporters chanted 'Santo subito,' or 'Sainthood now!'

"It looks like his supporters will finally be getting their wish. The former pope's path to sainthood is almost complete, with the Vatican recently confirming that he performed two miracles. Now all that's left is the official canonization ceremony, which has not been scheduled yet. The process of certifying miracles in the Catholic Church goes back centuries and involves an investigation by scientific experts....

"...Though it may seem strange to outsiders, verifying that miracles have occurred can strengthen people's beliefs, said Michael O'Neill, who runs the website MiracleHunter.com...."
I believe in miracles. Being a Catholic, I have to. (Catechism, 547-549)

That's not the same as believing television advertisements for 'miraculous' glow-in-the dark Jesus junk.

Here's a quick look at what the Catholic Church says about (real) miracles:
"MIRACLE: A sign or wonder, such as a healing or the control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine power. The miracles of Jesus were messianic signs of the presence of God's kingdom (547)."
(Glossary, Catechism)
More about miracles:

"No Natural or Scientific Explanation"

"... In the Catholic religion, saints are people who are in heaven with God. Though many more people may be in heaven and technically saints, those deemed official saints of the church are ones that the Catholic church knows are in heaven. As such, people can pray to these saints, who sometimes intercede on their behalf with God.

"But determining who is in heaven is a tricky proposition. That's where miracles come in. According to the church, miracles, or divine events that have no natural or scientific explanation, serve as proof that the person is in heaven and can intercede with God to change the ordinary course of events...."
(Tia Ghose, LiveScience)
I think it's likely that we don't know everything about how the universe works. What doesn't have a "natural or scientific" explanation today may be a natural phenomenon that we understand: a thousand years from now.

The Catholic Church doesn't put off decisions about Saints until we have all the answers. I'm okay with that.

Medical Miracles

"...Nearly all, or '99.9 percent of these are medical miracles,' O'Neill said. 'They need to be spontaneous, instantaneous and complete healing. Doctors have to say, "We don't have any natural explanation of what happened," ' O'Neill said.

"A woman whose breast cancer was cured wouldn't qualify, for instance, if she was given a 10 percent chance of survival - she would need to be told there was no chance of survival before any divine intervention, said the Rev. Stephan Bevans, a theology professor at the Catholic Theological Union...."
(Tia Ghose, LiveScience)
These aren't 'medical miracles' like aspirin or neural interfaces. When terminal cancer disappears suddenly, completely, for no natural reason: that's a miracle.

"Recent:" by Catholic Standards

"... In 2010, former Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that John Paul II had posthumously healed a French nun suffering from Parkinson's disease. The church recently confirmed a second miracle, when a Costa Rican woman's brain injury spontaneously healed after praying to John Paul II.

"Miracles can be confirmed only if the healed person prayed solely to one person, such as John Paul II, during their ordeal. That way, there can be no mix-up when determining which person in heaven interceded on their behalf, O'Neill said.

"Recent tradition

"The process of using miracles to determine saints has a relatively short history in the Catholic Church. Prior to 1531, when a Spanish peasant reportedly saw an image of the Virgin Mary in the slopes surrounding Mexico City, miracles weren't required and saints were agreed upon mostly through tradition or martyrdom, O'Neill told LiveScience...."
(Tia Ghose, LiveScience)
I like being part of an outfit where a process that's more than four centuries old has a "relatively short history."

By the way, that "Spanish" peasant is Juan Diego, a Native American with a Spanish name. He's famous for being involved in the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill.

2. Quantum Physics: Waves, Particles, and Maybe More


(Robert Goddard at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, Florida, via Simons Foundations, used w/o permission)
"The strange properties of superconducting materials called 'cuprates' (bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide is shown in this microscopy image), which cannot be described by known quantum mechanical methods, may correspond to properties of black holes in higher dimensions....."
"Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature's Building Blocks"
Natalie Wolchover, Simons Foundation (July 1, 2013)

"According to modern quantum theory, energy fields permeate the universe, and flurries of energy in these fields, called 'particles' when they are pointlike and 'waves' when they are diffuse, serve as the building blocks of matter and forces. But new findings suggest this wave-particle picture offers only a superficial view of nature's constituents.

"If each energy field pervading space is thought of as the surface of a pond, and waves and particles are the turbulence on that surface, then the new evidence strengthens the argument that a vibrant, hidden world lies beneath.

"For decades, the surface-level description of the subatomic world has been sufficient to make accurate calculations about most physical phenomena. But recently, a strange class of matter that defies description by known quantum mechanical methods has drawn physicists into the depths below.

" 'I've grown up as a physicist just living on that flatland, that 2-D space,' said Subir Sachdev, a physics professor at Harvard University who studies these strange forms of matter. Now, there is a whole new dimension to explore, he said, and 'you can think of the particles as just ending on that surface.'..."
It's nice when new data confirms that explanations we've found for natural phenomena are correct.

It's exciting when we find facts that don't fit established theories, particularly when it looks like we've found "a whole new dimension to explore."

"A New Way of Looking at Nature's Building Blocks"

"...Of all the strange forms of matter, cuprates - copper-containing metals that exhibit a property called high-temperature superconductivity - may be the strangest. In new research published online June 24 in the Journal of High Energy Physics, physicists at the University of California-Santa Barbara have explored the deeper phenomena that they claim are connected to the perplexing 'surface-level' behavior of cuprates. By focusing their calculations on that underlying environment, the researchers derived a formula for the conductivity of cuprates that was previously known only from experiments.

" 'The amazing thing is you start with this theory and out you get the conductivity of these strange superconductors,' said Sachdev, who was not involved with the work.

"The results bolster the evidence that this new way of looking at nature's building blocks is real and that it is 'strikingly literal,' said Jan Zaanen, a theoretical physicist at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

"What's more, the results could be seen as an unusual, indirect kind of evidence for string theory - a 40-year-old framework that weaves together quantum mechanics and gravity and is as mathematically elegant and profoundly explanatory as it is unproven.

"With looming questions about the nature of dark matter, the mysterious substance thought to constitute 84 percent of the mass in the universe, and the search for a 'theory of everything' that mathematically describes all of nature, researchers say the findings could have sweeping implications...."
(Natalie Wolchover, Simons Foundation)
Having an elegant set of equations is nice, at least for mathematicians. Discovering that the elegant math is 'real,' that it reflects how part of the universe works, is good news for scientists.

I'm impressed at what looks like another example of recursion. We see forms like circles, spheres, and spirals in a vast range of scales: from microscopic creatures and sunflower heads to whirlpools and galaxies.


(Brandon Weeks (August 7, 2004), via Wikimedia Commons)

Finally, "high temperature" superconductors aren't what I'd call warm. 'Ordinary' superconducting metals become superconductors at around 243 degrees below zero centigrade. The high temperature variety change at a comparatively high temperature of minus 135 centigrade, or 211 below zero Fahrenheit.

Even by Minnesota standards, that's cold.

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Monday, April 15, 2013

Boston Marathon Bombing: Tragedy and Uncertainty

Three people were killed by a series of explosions in Boston today. That's a tragedy, but could have been much worse.

No pressure, but prayer wouldn't hurt. A lot of people are hurting.

This seems to be what happened at about 2:50 p.m.:
  • Three people killed
    • Including an 8 year old boy
  • At least 125 injured
    • Some severely
      • Some lost limbs
  • An incident at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester may or may not be
    • Related to the explosions
    • An explosion
    • A fire

(FoxNews.com, used w/o permission)
"Multiple casualties reported after two explosions at Boston Marathon" (FoxNews.com)

In my considered opinion, I don't have enough information to form a considered opinion about who decided to kill people in Boston today.

Why?

One of the few certainties about today's explosions seems to be that they are the result of deliberate acts. What is not certain is who is responsible.

I am, however, fairly certain that whoever decided to cause death and destruction was motivated at least in part by hate.

So far, I've heard and read the usual opinions: that it is the fault of right-wing extremists, religion, and America. In my youth, I'd have been more likely to encounter claims that commies were to blame.

It's possible that some sort of religion was involved. Folks with a particularly vicious sort of faith encouraged me to take a very hard look at religion. Eventually I became a Catholic, and that's almost another topic.

It's possible that whoever killed folks in Boston is a Catholic. If so, I hope that person learns what the Catholic Church really teaches. Murder is against the rules. We're not even allowed to hate people. Any people.

Sadly, quite a few folks have very odd ideas about the Church. Some of them are Catholics. I've posted about that sort of thing:

Who?

Like I said, I don't have enough information to have a "considered opinion" about who is responsible for the bombings.

I don't have the luxury of simply assuming that 'it is the fault of [insert favorite bogeyman].' That sort of knee-jerk reaction isn't being a good citizen. As a Catholic, I have to practice responsible citizenship. It's in the rules. (November 4, 2012)

I suspect that so many folks embrace bias as a substitute for thought because it's easier: and because it tends to eliminate uncertainty. A person who 'knows' that all [favorite bogeymen] are bad, and that they're responsible for most or all bad stuff, can go straight to hating the [favorite bogeymen].

That may be comforting, in a way: but I'm quite certain that it's not right. Or, in the long run, prudent.

Unless something very definite comes out before then, I probably won't post about this terrible set of incidents until Friday.

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Hugo Chavez, Death, and Deadlines

Hugo Chavez has been a - colorful - leader:
He died today. I hope that Venezuela's next leader is rather more firmly rooted in reality, and less inclined to regard criticism as a threat.

I'm emphatically not going to indulge in the verbal equivalent of dancing on the former president's grave. Aside from being in dubious taste, it would be a pointless exercise. I take death, judgment, and similarly cheerful topics somewhat seriously:
Here's what started me on this post:

Hugo Chavez in the News

"Hugo Chavez died 'in the bosom of the Church' "
CNA (Catholic News Agency) (March 6, 2013)

"A reliable source in Venezuela has revealed to CNA that President Hugo Chavez died “in bosom of the Church” and received spiritual direction and the sacraments in his last days.

"In announcing Chavez's death to the nation on March 5, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said the Venezuelan leader died 'clinging to Christ.' The source in Venezuela told CNA that during the last weeks of his life, Chavez requested spiritual direction and asked to receive the sacraments.

"Ever since he assumed power in 1999, Chavez butted heads continuously with the Catholic Church over statements by the bishops warning of the risks and excesses of his Socialist agenda. In 2002, Chavez accused the Venezuelan bishops of being a 'tumor' for his revolutionary goals and demanded that the Vatican not intervene in the internal affairs of the country.

"In recent years, Chavez occasionally took part in the religious services of distinct denominations, but he surprised the press in April 2012 when he showed up at a Catholic church in his hometown of Barinas to attend Holy Week services. He wore a rosary around his neck and prayed for strength to fight his illness. Last July, Chavez made public his request to meet with the Catholic bishops...."
As I wrote when this news broke, "impending death, like deadlines, can have a wonderfully clarifying effect: particularly about priorities." (Brian Gill, Google+ (March 6, 2013))

On the other hand, I don't think cheerless gloom makes much sense:

Facing Death

'He died in his sleep' is supposed to be a comforting idea in my culture. I think folks who say that mean well, and assume that a good way to die would be quietly, painlessly: and unconsciously.

I don't see it that way. The pain I could do without: but I'd much rather be wide awake, and aware that my life was ending.

My reasons aren't (quite) the same as Lieutenant Worf, in Star Trek Next Generation, but I like this quote:
Lt. Commander Data: [examining skeletal remains in hotel bed] "Definitely human. Male."
Commander William T. Riker: "Looks like the poor devil died in his sleep."
Lieutenant Worf: "What a terrible way to die."
The big reason I have for wanting to be aware of my impending death, and alert at the time, is what happens right after I die. I've got an eternity to look forward to, with two basic options:
  • Hell
    (Catechism, 1033-1037)
    • "...This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'hell.' "
      (Catechism, 1033)
  • Heaven
    (Catechism, 1023-1029)
    • "Those who die in God's grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ...."
      (Catechism, 1023)
  • My final destination gets sorted out at my particular judgment
    (Catechism, 1021-1022)
I can't 'work my way into Heaven,' but I can't be indifferent to my permanent status, and that's another topic.

Life, Death, Eulogies, and All That

It's been a while since I saw a joke about overly-optimistic eulogies: the sort where mourners wondered if the preacher was talking about the fellow who'd died. Maybe the habit of padding the deceased's resume faded from American culture.

Eulogies don't happen at funeral Masses, by the way: or, more accurately, they're not supposed to. (II. Masses for the Dead, General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003))

In my part of the world, family or friends of whoever died often put together a sort of poster display: a retrospective of the life we're celebrating. The ones I've seen were in the church basement, where we gathered after the Mass. I think it's a great idea, since in that setting it's possible to pay attention to what's displayed, talk about it, or just sit and think.

And that's yet another topic.

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Marian Apparition: Champion, Wisconsin

Background:Posts in this blog: In the news:

What's That Doing in a Nice Catholic Blog?

From time to time, a service that I use will display links to - odd - services and retailers.

I block a few of the more obvious dubious advertisers.

For example: psychic anything, numerology, mediums, and related practices are on the no-no list for Catholics. It has to do with the Church's stand on divination. I try to block those ads.

Sometime regrettable advertisements get through, anyway.

Bottom line? What that service displays reflects the local culture's norms, - not Catholic teaching.